A couple of good jokes underpin Welcome to Collinwood. The lesser, why anyone ever thought it worth screening. The greater, why anyone should've paid to see it.
Released in the UK on a DVD decorated with tabloid Press endorsements that equate to the yesteryear door-post daubings on the homes of Plague victims (so you enter within at your peril) the wrapper does at least give fair warning of what awaits:
Five thieves. One safe. No brain (front cover)
Eight guys. One safe. No brain (back over).
As that's three characters gone AWOL in the publicity alone, never mind the running time, for what else, by its absence, is Collinwood notable?
Well, er. . . Considering that it's almost a scene by scene remake of a celebrated 50s Italian crime caper, writer / directors the Russo brothers aren't exactly big on original thinking. Watch the DVD extras, and they don't seem that big on, um, thinking, per se: though both burble on about the amount of hard work they found it necessary to invest in creating Collinwood's characters (sic) and plotting Collinwood's narrative arcs (ditto) they neglect to mention what they did for the rest of that afternoon.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it's that same spirit of omission that pervades the movie. Take one of the key scenes, for instance, where Macy's 'character', after having worn a phony plaster caste on an uninjured arm, winds up wearing a real plaster caste on an injured arm, this the result of a revenge beating en route to the safe cracking at the heart of the film.
Irony? Hey. It's a comedy. Laugh? Well maybe, but that's not easy because this scene never actually appears. Macy just, well, sort of, gets a broken arm.
What about George Clooney then, co-producer and lead actor (according to the DVD cover?) No. Not much sign of him either, because self-perceived auteur status aside, Clooney evidently had more to do in life than appear in stuff like this.
So to get around the problem of being a Big Star playing a safe cracker in a movie about safe cracking but who can't actually spend any time doing any of that, Clooney stays in a wheel chair throughout the eight or so minutes of his filming commitment, and is thus conveniently excused from participating in the climactic safe cracking scene. But then, that doesn't feature, either. So actually, Clooney needn't have been in the movie anyway.
Still. It's not difficult to see why he was so anxious to appear. Asked why, in one scene, he is wearing a false beard and a funny hat, Clooney doesn't actually fess up and say 'Because I don't want anyone to know I have any connection with this' but the much wittier: 'You're an idiot'.
Wilde, eat your heart out. Ripostes get no better than that. Well, not in Collinwood anyway, -- 'funniest movie of the year' (Sunday Mirror, UK); 'hilarious' (The Sun, UK), 'top notch performances' (Daily Mirror).
So. Eight guys and a safe and a brain becomes five guys and a safe and a brain. OK. Clooney's out, so that's seven. Who else? Well, the guy who sets it up: run over by a bus, this being in every sense a transport of delight as it prevents him from saying 'your mutha is a f--- whore' for the hundred and seventh time.
Right. Six left, and now it's the turn of the character largely responsible for bringing all the thieves together: he decides the movie's not worth risking his career on sorry, the safe's not worth it, either so exits to start a new life as an exotic dancer in Rio de Janeiro.
All right, all right. He doesn't. He goes off to work in a factory. As a joke, that's much funnier than going off to Rio de Janeiro, unless, of course, you've ever worked in a factory. As far as screen writing goes though, that's like having Michael Caine leaving the original Italian Job to go open a grocer's shop in Oldham.
Characters and scenes are not the only elements to vanish from, rather than being welcomed to, Collinwood. Entire sections of script vaporise, too, most memorably in the case of Isaiah Washington's character, who though introduced by someone else as being 'seriously weird' is from then on the most consistently normal person in the entire proceedings.
Explanation must be that all the weirdness supporting material scenes, dialog, action got left on the bus that ran over the chap who could only say your mutha is a f--- whore 107 times, or alternatively it was all pocketed by the character who ran off to Rio. Correction: to work in a factory.
So. . . Welcome to Collinwood. Two directors. Two producers. One screenplay. No hope.
Rating: 1 out of 10 (the point goes to the late Michael Jeter for at least trying to transcend the material). Plus: 10/10 for the DVD extras: so narcissistic, so infantile, that for a blissful moment you wonder if Chris Guest has arrived. Then realise: nope. These people Clooney, Soderbegh, the Russos, the cast they really do. . . Believe.
Released in the UK on a DVD decorated with tabloid Press endorsements that equate to the yesteryear door-post daubings on the homes of Plague victims (so you enter within at your peril) the wrapper does at least give fair warning of what awaits:
Five thieves. One safe. No brain (front cover)
Eight guys. One safe. No brain (back over).
As that's three characters gone AWOL in the publicity alone, never mind the running time, for what else, by its absence, is Collinwood notable?
Well, er. . . Considering that it's almost a scene by scene remake of a celebrated 50s Italian crime caper, writer / directors the Russo brothers aren't exactly big on original thinking. Watch the DVD extras, and they don't seem that big on, um, thinking, per se: though both burble on about the amount of hard work they found it necessary to invest in creating Collinwood's characters (sic) and plotting Collinwood's narrative arcs (ditto) they neglect to mention what they did for the rest of that afternoon.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it's that same spirit of omission that pervades the movie. Take one of the key scenes, for instance, where Macy's 'character', after having worn a phony plaster caste on an uninjured arm, winds up wearing a real plaster caste on an injured arm, this the result of a revenge beating en route to the safe cracking at the heart of the film.
Irony? Hey. It's a comedy. Laugh? Well maybe, but that's not easy because this scene never actually appears. Macy just, well, sort of, gets a broken arm.
What about George Clooney then, co-producer and lead actor (according to the DVD cover?) No. Not much sign of him either, because self-perceived auteur status aside, Clooney evidently had more to do in life than appear in stuff like this.
So to get around the problem of being a Big Star playing a safe cracker in a movie about safe cracking but who can't actually spend any time doing any of that, Clooney stays in a wheel chair throughout the eight or so minutes of his filming commitment, and is thus conveniently excused from participating in the climactic safe cracking scene. But then, that doesn't feature, either. So actually, Clooney needn't have been in the movie anyway.
Still. It's not difficult to see why he was so anxious to appear. Asked why, in one scene, he is wearing a false beard and a funny hat, Clooney doesn't actually fess up and say 'Because I don't want anyone to know I have any connection with this' but the much wittier: 'You're an idiot'.
Wilde, eat your heart out. Ripostes get no better than that. Well, not in Collinwood anyway, -- 'funniest movie of the year' (Sunday Mirror, UK); 'hilarious' (The Sun, UK), 'top notch performances' (Daily Mirror).
So. Eight guys and a safe and a brain becomes five guys and a safe and a brain. OK. Clooney's out, so that's seven. Who else? Well, the guy who sets it up: run over by a bus, this being in every sense a transport of delight as it prevents him from saying 'your mutha is a f--- whore' for the hundred and seventh time.
Right. Six left, and now it's the turn of the character largely responsible for bringing all the thieves together: he decides the movie's not worth risking his career on sorry, the safe's not worth it, either so exits to start a new life as an exotic dancer in Rio de Janeiro.
All right, all right. He doesn't. He goes off to work in a factory. As a joke, that's much funnier than going off to Rio de Janeiro, unless, of course, you've ever worked in a factory. As far as screen writing goes though, that's like having Michael Caine leaving the original Italian Job to go open a grocer's shop in Oldham.
Characters and scenes are not the only elements to vanish from, rather than being welcomed to, Collinwood. Entire sections of script vaporise, too, most memorably in the case of Isaiah Washington's character, who though introduced by someone else as being 'seriously weird' is from then on the most consistently normal person in the entire proceedings.
Explanation must be that all the weirdness supporting material scenes, dialog, action got left on the bus that ran over the chap who could only say your mutha is a f--- whore 107 times, or alternatively it was all pocketed by the character who ran off to Rio. Correction: to work in a factory.
So. . . Welcome to Collinwood. Two directors. Two producers. One screenplay. No hope.
Rating: 1 out of 10 (the point goes to the late Michael Jeter for at least trying to transcend the material). Plus: 10/10 for the DVD extras: so narcissistic, so infantile, that for a blissful moment you wonder if Chris Guest has arrived. Then realise: nope. These people Clooney, Soderbegh, the Russos, the cast they really do. . . Believe.